White Dresses and Dead People
by danniisupernova
Summary: Lamb is taking Veronica down with him. LambVeronica. Spoilers for eps 1x21 and 3x15.
1. Boxed it up and buried it in the ground

and everyday she runs it through her mind again and again, and she's sitting there in her white dress, staring at him, trying not to cry but it doesn't make any difference because when she looks at him and can't see herself reflected back in his eyes and can't see the man she dramatically declared to her diary at the age of 12 was her first love, The One (she remembers capitalizing it like that), who took those silly pictures two years ago at Christmas of her and her dad wearing those silly matching hats, the tears start to slide down her face no matter how hard she tries to keep them in. Because he's laughing at her. When he'd had to look after her one day when Keith was out on duty late night and her mother was away with friends, she'd told him about how the boy she'd had a crush on (she can even remember his name: Ethan Reiner, who got caught kissing another boy freshman year in the locker room,) had called her a bitch and Lamb'd told her that if any snot-nosed kid fucked with her he'd kick the crap out of them. And oh, how thirteen year old Veronica Mars glowed, for days it felt like, and she didn't realize until she sat in front of him, tears spilling out of her, after all the things he'd said, she'd still been glowing, right up to this moment.

She wants so badly to lay down on the floor and die when she remembers these things, but in all of her instant replays she imagines clawing out his eyes and slamming his face down on what used to be her _father's_ desk, those violent thoughts that are usually pushed aside for more pleasant things. In these fantasies she watches him bleed, crying "I take it back! I take it back!" because all she really wants is none of these things; what she really wants she pushes down, burying them under the hate and contempt and betrayal: for him to put his arm around her shoulders like he used to, to promise to find who did it and to beat the crap out of them for her. For her, that's the most important part. She still thinks about it, even after Duncan admits it, even after Cassidy admits it. And now she doesn't trust anyone, because it's all disappointment in the end: her mother, Logan, all of them were expected.

Now it's been one week, three days and two hours since she found out he died and all she can imagine is her white dress, spotted with blood so bright it hurts to look at it. And now those blood spots are everywhere. "Go see the Wizard," she thinks. And soon that's all she thinks.

***

She hasn't slept in a week. She's amazed she caught Tim Foyle at all. If he hadn't been so ham-fisted with the bug and the information, she never would have known. Lamb was whispering in her ear that she was cracking up, that Veronica Mars was finally losing it. She fails her history test.

Every night she stares up at the ceiling and the blood spots come back to her.

***

Another week passes. She stares at the clock, watching the night slide past her, minute by minute.

She fails her Criminology test.

***

Wallace is always asking how she is. He's worried about her.

She always tells him "Fine, just tired."

It's the kind of sloppy lie that would get her caught in real life, but real life is starting to disintegrate around her, like so much colored sand.

***

She looks in the mirror and there he is. Lamb is standing next to her reflection. He is wearing his uniform and a knit green cap that reads "Merry Christmas". Both are covered in blood. His hair under the cap is matted with it and insanely enough (was this madness ever going to end?) he was singing, sounding a little drunk.

"_Why do birds suddenly appear/Every time you are near?/Just like me, they long to be/Close to you_..."

She wheeled around to see him, to ask him why. But there's nothing there, no birds, no blood, no dead sheriff.

Another week passes, and she sees him three more times.


	2. music's my imaginary friend

and it was getting so she could barely stand it, but Veronica considers last night a small triumph: she slept for thirty minutes. In a row. She knows this because there is a space of thrity minutes missing from her long inventory. She slept for thirty minutes (in a row!) between 2:48am and 3:18am. She can almost remember the dream she had, something about Weevil and Meg that didn't make any sense and she knows Lamb was there. He's always there, even if she doesn't see him. He's always laughing at her, out of the corner of her eye, but she can never catch him.

She's banking on her headphones to save her. She keeps them clamped tightly to her head at all times; they keep her from talking to him, snarking like she would before, like a third person would. She's done this once already and people had stared. Veronica glared at them. Plenty of people looked funnier then her.

She doesn't understand why she's seeing Lamb at all; the reason Lilly had come to her was always abundantly clear. The truth is she's so tired she can barely make a fork work, let alone her whole brain. All she knows for sure is that her headphones make her safe, so she wears them all the time.

But every so often any song she listens to will fade out, mutating into strains of "Welcome to the Jungle". Veronica can't stand Guns 'n' Roses, but she can't turn it off. He's waiting for her.

***

She was driving home after dropping Mac and Parker off at Hearst. Parker had chattered on about the dates she and Logan were going on. It wasn't that Parker was inconsiderate or that Mac was oblivious, Veronica had just told them she was seeing someone else. And frankly she was at the point where Parker could talk about fucking Logan and she would barely even notice. She'd had to turn the music down, but Parker was so distracting it didn't make too much difference to her. But after they were gone (Mac was giving her weird looks and Veronica was glad when she got out of the car), she turned up the stereo as loud as it would go.

And he was sitting _right there_, right next to her, with a sandwich in his hand. He wasn't wearing the hat or his uniform shirt anymore. Instead he had a Guns n Roses t-shirt and a pair of mirrored aviators on.

"What's up Veronica?" He took a bite of the sandwich. She could hear the squish of the mayonnaise and the meat tearing apart. It sounded raw, like wet cellophane.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Veronica tried to snarl. She was run so ragged it practically came out a sob. Lamb laughed. "You're kidding right?"

He looked at her, smiling like an asshole. Scratch that, a _dead_ asshole. She stared ahead, teeth clenched. "You really don't know? Veronica Mars needs a clue from the incompetent, stupid Donald Lamb?"

He looks away from her, grinning. That's when Veronica notices the way his skull collapses in the back, like it's broken under the skin. She tries hard not to gag. He turns back to her, still wearing that asshole grin. "Look at the shirt. Look really hard."

On the radio, Klaxons warped into Guns n Roses.

"I don't get it! What the fuck are you trying to tell me?!" She looks at him, furious. Lamb leans in, lowering his sunglasses to look at her. "The reason? It's that you should really be watching the road." 

She looks up into blaring light, she hears brakes slam and then Lamb was laughing and


	3. something for my hands to do

running water over the dishes. Veronica carefully scrubs a plate. The remnants won't come off. They stick there, no matter how hard she scrubs. The water flows over her hands and the dishes, making her smile, making her calm.

She feels a hand snake up her side. It grabs her shoulder and whirls her around. She's staring up into Lamb's face. He grabs the back of her neck and kisses her roughly. She yanks him closer, watching the door as he picks her up, sitting her on the kitchen counter, spreading her legs. He pulls the shirt over her head and shoves the jeans off of her legs. And Veronica wants this but she still watches the door, afraid that her father will walk in or that Logan will walk in or even Wallace, because then they'll see her like this and if her eyes aren't open they'll know that she wants this, has been wanting it and hiding it from them. And they'll think that she's disgusting, that she has no self respect, for wanting it like this. She wishes Lamb would say something boneheaded about how he knew this was how she liked it or ask her if he's doing it right, but he doesn't and she hates him even more for knowing her that well.

And as he's fucking her up against the kitchen cupboards so unceremoniously, his hands on her breasts and his mouth on her neck, she wishes they would come and see her like this so she wouldn't have to pretend anymore, pretend that she's so goddamn tough, so squeaky clean, denying herself all the time. Her hand is on the back of his head and it's wet, but not like water and she could feel chips of his skull moving under his scalp and she remembers that Lamb is dead and that she can never have this, no matter how badly she wants it and he looks at her again and asks if she can smell bread and 

***  
Her eyes fly open. There is a dull throb in her left ear. In fact that whole side of her head feels like one big bruise. Her head's leaning on the window. She thinks 'I must've hit it against there when...'  
She looks out the windshield. An old Chevy pick up is crunched into the front-right side of her Saturn.

"Oh shit," she whispers. She brings her hand to her forhead. It comes away red. She see's something is written on her palm. It's in Lamb's hand writting. She recognizes it from many signed lunch reciepts.

'Madison is a blonde'

'Well what the hell does that mean? I know she's a blonde,' Veronica thinks. 'Not even a natural one. I remember when someone thought I was her in the hall with a new haircut-'

She begins to process this. Everything suddenly seems too sharp and bright.

There is a flurry of knocks on her window. She starts. There is a young white man standing outside. All of the anger in his face disappears when he sees her face.

"Oh my God!"

Veronica looks at her face in the mirror. She has a huge gash at her hairline.  
"Please," she says weakly, "please: take me to the hospital."

***  
They've stitched up the side of her face, exactly seven stitches long. They give her pain pills and send her home. She declines the ride from Rick, the man with the junked truck. He's left and it's dark now.

She walks the five miles home. Or tries to. She finds herself in a park, nestled in the 90909 area code, supposedly far away from the murderers and rapists that plague the other side of town. The smell of the grass is sweet to her and reminds her of summer nights as a little kid. For the first time in almost two weeks she feels like she can finally sleep. But she can't. God knows who might wake her up. Or how.

"You can sleep. I'll be here the whole time."

Lamb lays down next to her. He whispers in her ear and it's like she can feel him all around her. Her eyelids get heavy.

She could swear she feels his head against her back. But that's impossible because he's dead. And she thinks it's starting to fade and she gets desperate, Veronica Mars, of all people gets desperate for a second.

"Don't go."

"Is the indestructible Veronica Mars asking me a favor?"

"Asshole."

She could swear he's holding her, but who can say, for God's sake she thinks she might be in love with a dead guy but that doesn't seem like such a huge obstacle after all she


	4. some velvet morning when i'm straight

is sunlight. The grass around her is wet. She expects to see Dick Casablancas standing over her, yelling back to his friends to look, look over here, look at the fucking junkie and hey whadayaknow it's Veronica Mars!

But instead it's a kind face that greets her, along with a familiar smell. "Lamb?" she smiles up at him. But it's not Lamb, it's Sacks, wearing that ludicrous cologne that seemed to permeate the whole station back before Lamb died. Sacks has one of the K-9 units with him, Lawrence. The dog sniffs at her stitched scalp and licks her face.

"Hey buddy," she says to the dog, smiling. It's amazing what twelve hours of sleep will do for your outlook on life. She smiles up at Sacks as well. "Hey there good-lookin. You look like you've never seen a girl sleeping in a park before."

"Veronica are you okay? " The look he gives her says exactly what he won't: why were you were dreaming about Lamb?

She reaches and he helps her up.

As they walk to the car, Veronica wishes Lamb were here. He would think this was funny.

***

Keith reads her the riot act. He's furious at her for disappearing. But Veronica doesn't try to explain away the dents in the car or the stitches or why she slept in Franklin Park. She looks for Lamb behind her fathers desk, the desk that used to be his. He's not there.

***

The diner isn't crowded. She sits in the middle booth. She watches the door. "Honey?" the waitress is waiting for her to order. "Short stack and an orange juice."

Lamb isn't here either.

She sips her orange juice and watches the door, waiting.

***  
Weevil has agreed to fix the dents in her car for less then the body shop would charge. She walks to the beach, taking her shoes off when they start to hurt. She won't find Lamb here and she's not looking. She just thinks about what's happened, knowing she'll never figure this mystery out. She picks up a rock to skip.

Then she sees it on her hand: "Madison is blonde."

She barely has time to register the car as it comes sailing towards her.

***

She wakes up, her head in Lilly's lap. "Oh Veronica Mars, you and your bad boys," she sighs dreamily. She's glowing. Lilly helps Veronica stand up. Lamb is standing next to her, dressed as the sheriff again. The hole in the back of his head is gone. He takes her hand quietly, neither of them acknowledging it.

"You were my unfinished buisness, the only person who missed me. I fucked you over when I should have helped you."

"So you crashed my car?" She rolls her eyes at him.

"Hey it's not my fault I'm this good looking. And that you drive the way that you look." He pauses for effect. "Like a bimbo."

Veronica clutches her chest. "Wow. Do you write your own material because that.....that was just amazing!"  
They're walking together. She stops for a minute and looks back at Lilly. "I thought this was supposed to be a happy ending."

He shrugs and looks at her.

"Close enough."

*****  
She's in the hospital, for the second time in two days. She looks at the date on her forms and she starts to cry for the first time in ernest. Keith is sitting in a chair reading a book. He gets up and holds her. "What is sweetie?"

"He's been dead for two weeks today."

Keith looks at her quizzically. "Who?"

"Lamb. I'm sorry, but I miss him and I know that I shouldn't and that he was a bad cop and a jerk, but he was good too and everyone is forgetting that, like it never happened. I'm sorry Dad!" She keeps crying, thinking of Lilly, fading away and Lamb, fading away like they never exsisted.

And Keith isn't mad at her, he tells her it's okay and that maybe, they can go to the funeral if she wants and meet his parents if she wants or not talk to anybody if that's what she needs. He understands why she misses him, he's known how she felt since before she did. She is, after all, his daughter. And now she can sleep, even when he's gone. Because she doesn't have to miss him all the time anymore, because Keith is missing him with her.

FIN


End file.
